Starting its second year, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is adapting to its place on the world art stage.

Director Don Bacigalupi said the first-year attendance of 604,000 was more than double the anticipated number for a museum in a city of 36,000 residents.

The museum, which opened Nov. 11, 2011, expects to sustain high attendance numbers as it rotates traveling exhibits, such as a Norman Rockwell show that opens in March and, later, the second installment of a four-year agreement that combines works from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Louvre in Paris and Crystal Bridges.

Beyond an average attendance of nearly 2,000 people per day — Bacigalupi said the level of attention visitors give the works was also a surprise.

"They're not walking quickly through the galleries, not doing the three seconds in front of a work of art. They're showing a deeper engagement," he said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. heiress Alice Walton, daughter of company founder Sam Walton, bankrolled the museum and its collection. The company itself pledged $20 million to cover admission fees. Audio tours also are free.

Bacigalupi said he'd expected the lack of a fee would have resulted in visitors not taking the art as seriously.

"If you paid $25 at the (Metropolitan Museum of Art) or (the Museum of Modern Art in New York) you have to get your money's worth and spend as much time as possible looking at the works," Bacigalupi said.

An unexpected challenge is to provide patrons with the volume of information they want about the works on display — 500 of the museum's 2,000 pieces. Curators are performing research so they can post extended placards.

As Walton built the museum's collection during years of planning and construction, the museum drew its share of snarky comments for its placement in a heartland town known only as the headquarters of the world's largest retailer. If people traveled to this slice of northwest Arkansas, it was mostly to do business with Wal-Mart and Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc.

"I was confronted with a lot of skepticism. I think we all were," Bacigalupi said, noting there were misunderstandings about what Walton wanted to build. He also said he endured art-world criticism, at times biting, about his decision to lead the museum. Bacigalupi previously was the director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.

"I think the wonderful news today is that all that has turned around," he said, noting Crystal Bridges will host a symposium for the Association of Art Museum Directors in January.

Kalene Griffith, director of the Bentonville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said sales tax receipts are up more than 10 percent from a year ago and that she's seen the city blossom into an attraction for leisure tourists, which is new turf.

Page 2 of 2 - "The fortunate thing with Crystal Bridges is that it is having an increase (in tourism numbers) in all of our region and even within our state," she said.

Griffith says the Rockwell exhibit, scheduled for March 9 through May 28, will draw big crowds.

"Oh my gosh, that's going to be a huge draw for people from all over the Midwest and the South because you can see Norman Rockwell (paintings) when you go to the East Coast but not in this area," Griffith said.